The nation was too much excited, in 1775, to take much interest in the Calvinian controversy; which, however, still proceeded. Fletcher published “The Second Part of the Scripture Scales”: 12mo, 237 pages. Also, “The Last Check 1775 to Antinomianism. A Polemical Essay on the Twin Doctrines of Christian Imperfection and a Death Purgatory.” 12mo, 327 pages. Toplady, likewise, issued “The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted; in opposition to Mr. John Wesley’s Tract on that Subject.” As usual, Toplady excelled in abusiveness. He tells his readers, that the chief ingredients in Wesley’s tract are “an equal portion of gross heathenism, Pelagianism, Mahometism, popery, Manicheanism, ranterism, and antinomianism, culled, dried, and pulverized, _secundum artem_; and, above all, mingled with as much palpable atheism as could be possibly scraped together.” Wesley is taunted as a “poor gentleman, who is necessarily an universal meddler; and, as necessarily, an universal miscarrier.” “He paddles in metaphysics, knows a little, presumes a great deal, and so jumps to conclusions.” His “Thoughts on Necessity” are “as crude and dark as chaos.” This scurrility was a thing to which Wesley had been long accustomed. It was cast upon him by writers of all descriptions. In this same year, 1775, an octavo pamphlet of 35 pages was published, with the title, “A Letter to a Friend on the Subject of Methodism;” in which the anonymous writer, among a multitude of other calumnies, declares that the tendency of Wesley’s system is “to fill parishes with whores, rogues, and bastards”; and defines Methodist preaching as “a ridiculous effusion, delivered with an enthusiastic air, a distorted countenance, a whining, snivelling accent, and a soporific, nasal twang.” Wesley had too much of a gentleman’s self respect to even notice vulgarities like these; and yet they were far from being pleasant, and tend to show that Methodism struggled into its mighty manhood amid the incessant peltings of every kind of pitiless persecution. The storm, during Wesley’s lifetime, from one quarter or another, was perpetual; but, powerless to destroy, it simply made the roots of the tree strike deeper. Two of Wesley’s publications, in 1775, have been already noticed. The others were: 1. “A Sermon on 1 John v. 7.” Dublin: 12mo, 31 pages. 2. “The Important Question. A Sermon, preached in Taunton, on September 12, 1775. Published at the Request of many of the Hearers, for the Benefit of a Public Charity.” 12mo, 33 pages. This sermon was delivered in the presbyterian chapel, and was made the means of converting Mrs. Stone, in whose house Dr. Coke, shortly after, met Wesley’s preachers, to confer with them about his religious scruples; and where he preached his first sermon outside the precincts of a parish church.[251]